A critical tweet by Donald Trump saying ousted FBI Director James Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations" may lead to the president's impeachment, said Matthew Continetti, editor-in-chief of The Washington Free Beacon.
"Twitter helped make Donald Trump president. It may also lead to his impeachment," he said in a column posted on the Free Beacon.
"It now looks like the most consequential tweet of his presidency to date came a few days after he fired James Comey as FBI director.
That tweet, Comey told the Senate, prompted the now-private citizen to instruct a friend, Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman, to share with The New York Times the contents of contemporaneous memos he had written describing his interactions with the president.
The article, published a week to the day Comey was fired, revealed that the president had asked the FBI director to end the criminal investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn
"Why did Comey have Richman call the Times? Because, he told the Senate, he hoped that the disclosure of the memo would prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia's involvement in the 2016 election and possible collusion with associates of the president's campaign," Continetti writes.
"That is exactly what happened May 17, the day after the Times piece, when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named as counsel former FBI Director Robert Mueller."
Continetti said by firing Comey and then "tweeting recklessly about it, Trump elevated a long-running but manageable problem — the so-called 'Russia thing' into an independent investigation that seriously dangers his presidency."
He said Comey implied that the president obstructed justice by asking him to end the investigation into Flynn.
And, Continetti noted, it is likely Comey will make the same case to his "friend," special counsel Robert Mueller, who will eventually report his findings to Congress.
"A Congress that, by January 2019, might not be under full Republican control," he noted.
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